


Multilinear Psychology

by theimprobable1



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Heartbreak, M/M, Pining, Post-Episode: s05e05 Geothermal Escapism, Sad with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:07:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27844213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theimprobable1/pseuds/theimprobable1
Summary: Abed tries to find a timeline where Troy doesn't leave.
Relationships: Annie Edison & Abed Nadir, Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Comments: 25
Kudos: 115





	Multilinear Psychology

Abed knows he shouldn’t do this. Messing with the timelines is dangerous, he’s learned that, and he doesn’t want to risk hurting one of his friends if he stops being able to tell simulation from reality.

But he can’t help himself. He’s been locked inside Troy’s bedroom ( _his_ bedroom, it’s _his_ bedroom now) for days now, venturing out only when he’s certain that Annie is out or asleep, to use the bathroom and to try to eat a little bit of the food she’s left out for him. Everything hurts so much, and he needs an escape, at least for a little while.

He won’t access the darkest timeline. There’s no point – he already knows that Troy leaves him in that one too, even though Pierce dies much earlier and doesn’t leave a will. He moves out of their apartment when Evil Abed stops being evil and abandons the plan to darken the prime timeline. Abed has no need to revisit that, so he should be safe – or at least safer, since the other timelines are far less extreme and risky.

They are also less different, but that’s okay. Abed knows all about the butterfly effect, he knows that the smallest change can have far-reaching consequences down the line.

He just has to find a timeline where Troy doesn’t leave.

[ **_Timeline 2 (Annie)_ ** ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS7eyAg13HM&ab_channel=Community)

Troy finds Annie’s gun. He takes her aside later during the party – Abed sees them behind the Indiana Jones diorama, Troy’s expression open and worried as he places a gentle hand on Annie’s upper arm. Annie looks distraught at first, then her eyes go wide and she smiles, throwing her arms around his neck. She goes to the bathroom with a new spring in her step, while Troy approaches Abed.

“Uh, Abed?” he says rather sheepishly. “Listen, I know I probably should’ve talked to you about it first, but I kind of asked Annie to move in with us. She said she’d only do it if you were okay with it, obviously, but she looked _so happy_ when I suggested it. We can’t let her live in a neighborhood where she has to carry a gun to feel safe.”

Of course Abed is okay with it – he would have suggested it himself if Troy hadn’t. He loves Annie, and he thinks she will be a great addition to their dynamic. What he hasn’t expected is that Troy and Annie’s friendship grows closer as a result. It’s mostly due to Annie’s gratitude that Troy noticed she needed help and cared enough to actually provide it, but as time goes on, Abed begins to wonder if part of it couldn’t also be attributed to Annie’s reawakened crush on Troy.

Troy and Annie develop a new dynamic that’s completely separate from Abed, which is fine. It doesn’t affect Troy’s friendship with Abed, or the tree of them together, but Abed starts to worry what would happen to the fabric of the group and their apartment if Troy and Annie started dating. The thought makes an unpleasant feeling churn in his gut whenever he sees them together

He’s completely wrong, though, as it turns out.

“Okay, everyone,” Annie says at the beginning of one of their study sessions, “before we start studying, Troy and I have an announcement.” She meets Troy’s eyes across the table meaningfully, while everyone else exchanges confused looks.

Troy gets up, avoiding Abed’s eyes, and moves around the table to stand at Annie’s side. He squares his shoulders and takes her hand.

 _“Ooh,_ ” Shirley coos excitedly when she notices their joined hands, but Abed realizes at that moment that that’s not what this is about, because Annie looks the kind of determined that means she’s actually terrified, and Troy looks like his brain is crying but he’s trying to ignore it.

Troy’s grip on Annie’s hand tightens in a way that must hurt, and then he speaks, loud and clear.

“Annie wants you to know that she’s a lesbian.”

“And Troy wants you to know that he’s gay,” Annie adds over Shirley’s gasp.

“Cool,” Abed says before the ensuing silence can stretch, shooting a finger gun at both of them. “I thought you were secretly dating, excellent plot twist.” His actual feelings are way more complicated than that, but he thinks Troy and Annie would appreciate it more if he gave them a regular, Abed-ish reaction. Troy gives him a relieved smile and his grip on Annie’s hand relaxes, so Abed knows he’s made the right choice.

Britta and Jeff immediately join in with their support, Pierce complains that he has no speech prepared for Annie and Troy because he didn’t know gayness was catching, so Jeff kicks him out, and Shirley spends some time staring at her giant purse before hugging both Troy and Annie and assuring them that God loves all his children.

Abed sees no reason to add his coming out to theirs. It would look like he’s trying to steal the show, for one, but mostly, he knows that everyone would start wondering about him and Troy, and that would hit a little too close to home. Unrequited love plotlines are hateful, and if he has to be in one, he’d rather nobody knew or even suspected. So he doesn’t say anything now, and he definitely doesn’t say anything later, when it’s confirmed that Troy’s interests lie elsewhere.

Troy and Annie put a lot of effort into wingmanning for each other, and it pays off. It doesn’t take long before Annie introduces her new girlfriend, aspiring poet Amanda Johnson.

Soon after that, Troy starts dating Karl, the least annoying of the German students.

As a matter of fact, his unfortunate choice of friends aside, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with Karl. He’s sweet and fun and an excellent gamer. He makes Troy laugh. Abed knows all this. Abed likes him. It still takes him some time to adapt, not to let his jealousy get the better of him, but he gets there eventually. A session in the Dreamatorium with Annie helps. He thinks she may have figured out what his real feelings are, but she doesn’t say anything, and Abed is grateful for that. He buries the feelings as deep as he can, hoping they’ll go away eventually.

They never do, but they do get easier to bear after a while. Troy is happy and Abed still gets to have his friendship. That’s all that matters. That’s all he wants.

Until one day towards the end of their senior year, when Troy steps inside Abed’s blanket fort and the look on his face immediately tells Abed that something serious has happened.

“Karl’s going back to Germany after graduation,” he says, his eyes brimming with unshed tears. “He asked me to go with him.”

Abed’s heart plummets and shatters. He feels like he can’t speak, breathe, think.

“Do you want to?” he manages to ask, already knowing the answer.

“I don’t know,” Troy says, and tears finally spill down his cheeks. “I think – I think I do.”

Abed nods, unable to look Troy in the eye, unable to bear his pleading look. There are knives embedded in his chest, and he has to pretend there aren’t.

“Cool. Cool, cool, cool.”

It’s a lie.

By the time Pierce dies, Troy is long gone, living happily in Munich with Karl. Pierce leaves all his sperm and fortune to Shirley, claiming that she’s the only one in the group who isn’t gay, insane, or both. Shirley’s initially reluctant to accept, given his phrasing, but ultimately decides it would piss him off more if she accepted the inheritance, used half of it to expand Shirley’s Sandwiches, and donated the rest to LGBT and mental health charities.

[ **_Timeline 3 (Pierce)_ ** ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_PXEr8PJPI&ab_channel=Community)

After the party winds down, Troy insists on driving Britta home. She objects that she’s fine and was never properly high in the first place, but it’s half-hearted at best and she seems touched by his care.

Troy comes home much later than a round trip to Britta’s would warrant, his shirt buttoned up wrong and his ascot missing. Abed pretends not to notice.

He pretends not to notice them sneaking around in the following weeks, being much more obvious about having secret sex than Jeff and Britta ever were. He pretends to them and he pretends to himself, wanting not to see, not to know.

He can no longer pretend not to notice when Britta shows up at their apartment on a Saturday morning, pale-faced and clutching a positive pregnancy test.

Troy freaks out for a while about being too young to be a dad, but soon a sense of purpose settles over him.

“I never knew what I wanted to do with my life, you know,” he tells Abed one night, during one of the last bunk bed conversations they’ll ever have. “I think this is it.”

Abed knows without a shadow of doubt that the world can only be better with a mini-Troy in it, but a part of him still resents this person that isn’t even a person yet for taking Troy away from him in a way that he can never compete with. Troy and Britta move to be close to Troy’s mom so she can help with the baby, and it’s barely over an hour’s drive away, it’s not far, and they all have phones and computers. But.

Troy’s different now. He gets a job as a plumber, spends his free time painting the nursery and baby-proofing the house and massaging Britta’s feet and talking to Shirley about how to be a good parent. Abed has no place in that world.

Britta and Troy decide to name their son Luke, after someone explains to Britta that Chewbacca isn’t actually an African name. He has Troy’s eyes and nose and Abed loves him more than he can say from the moment he first lays eyes on him. Troy bursts into tears when Luke’s tiny fist closes around Abed’s finger, laying his head on Abed’s shoulder, and Abed’s insides twist at the taste of a life he can never have.

Troy thrives on being a father. Luke is the new center of his universe, and there’s a look of tired happiness on his face in every picture of himself and his son that he spams his social media with. Abed likes every single one of them. Troy’s happy, and that’s what matters.

They talk every day. Every week. Every month. On December 9th.

Abed finishes his degree, finds a job in a small production company, sleeps with forgettable people. Tries to keep busy.

When Pierce dies, he leaves his fortune to Troy, on the condition that he and Britta name their second child after him. It’s a girl, so they call her Anastasia. She’s just as adorable as Luke, if not more, but Abed only ever sees her in photos.

[ **_Timeline 4 (Shirley)_ ** ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XduMjIWkNhY&ab_channel=Community)

“Abed?” Troy asks after they have cleaned up after the party and gone to bed.

“Hmm?” Abed was ready to drift off to sleep, but Troy sounds like there’s something on his mind, so he blinks and tries to focus.

“Remember when – when Shirley said, about the googly eyes? And we all kind of looked at each other?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think it means something? Who we looked at, I mean. We were all kind of standing next to each other, so it probably doesn’t mean anything, right?”

Abed shifts to lie on his back, looking at the underside of the top bunk. He thinks he knows what this is about.

“The arrangement in these kinds of shots is rarely accidental. All of the relationships hinted at have happened or been teased in some way at some point in past seasons.”

There’s a slightly longer pause.

“Even – even you and me?”

“Sure,” Abed says like his heart isn’t beating a mile a minute. “We spent last Valentine’s Day together, for instance. We hold hands. We had matching costumes on Halloween.”

“Oh,” Troy breathes. “Yeah.”

Abed waits a moment to see if Troy will say something else, then asks, “Does it bother you?”

“No!” Troy says quickly. “No. I’m glad I get to do all that with you. I don’t care what it looks like.”

It’s perhaps not the response Abed would want, but it’s the best one he can actually hope to get.

“Cool.”

“Good night, Abed.”

“Good night, Troy.”

Over the next few days, Abed sometimes becomes aware of Troy giving him long, thoughtful looks. He tries not to worry about or get his hopes up. Troy’s behavior towards him hasn’t changed, and that’s the only thing that matters.

Then one day they’re watching Inspector Spacetime, and Troy suddenly presses pause and says, “I want to try something.”

“Okay,” Abed says. “What do you want to try?”

“I, uh,” Troy mumbles, like he didn’t think he’d have to say it. “I want to kiss you. Just, you know. Just to see what it’s like.”

Abed’s heart does a somersault, but he nods. Of course he does – even if Troy finds out that what it’s like is something he never wants to repeat, at least Abed will get to kiss him once.

He stands up from his chair and waits for Troy to do the same and step into his personal space. Troy seems nervous, so Abed makes sure to keep calm to let him know there’s nothing to worry about. Troy leans in, and presses his lips to Abed.

He clearly means it to be only a quick peck, pulling away almost immediately, but Abed doesn’t let him get too far. If Troy wants to know what it’s like to kiss Abed, then Abed will show him what it’s like to _really_ kiss him. He cups the back of Troy’s head and kisses him fully, properly, until his head is spinning and Troy is making needy little sounds at the back of his throat.

“Wow. That – um,” Troy says eloquently when they break apart.

Abed nods, hardly able to form a more coherent sentence. Troy’s lips are pink and shiny, and Abed thinks he’ll die if he doesn’t get to kiss them again.

“I really liked that,” Troy says shyly, looking up at Abed through his eyelashes. 

“Me too,” Abed agrees, and then adds, just so there’s no misunderstanding, “I really like you, Troy.”

Troy smiles like the rising sun, and kisses Abed again.

What follows is, quite simply, the best time of Abed’s life. Their transition from best friends to boyfriends is smooth and seamless, since they had already been a couple in almost every way. When their building is being tented for termites, they use the opportunity to go on a road trip, their first couple’s vacation. Annie nags them about missing classes but understands that they want privacy. They have sex for the first time in a cheap motel room that somehow seems like the most romantic location on earth. Afterwards, Troy snuggles into Abed’s chest and tells him he loves him, and Abed knows without a shred of doubt that this is the best possible timeline.

The bliss comes to a sudden end a year and a half later, just before their graduation, when Abed tells Troy he’s gotten a video interview for a job in LA. Troy’s reaction isn’t the excitement Abed was expecting.

“In LA?” he repeats, his face doing something weird.

“If I want to make it in Hollywood, I have to get started as soon as I can,” Abed tries to explain.

“You didn’t tell me you were looking for jobs in LA,” Troy says. He sounds… accusatory.

“I didn’t want to say anything until I had something solid.” Abed thought Troy would get too confident Abed would get a job and then be disappointed if nothing worked out, but now it seems he may have miscalculated. 

“And what about me?” Troy asks, clearly fighting to hold back tears, and Abed finally understands. Or thinks he does.

“You’ll come with me,” Abed says, stepping closer to Troy. “Of course you’ll come with me, surely you didn’t think--”

“Oh, I will, will I? Funny, I don’t remember you asking me if I _want to._ ”

Abed blinks. “You don’t?”

“I don’t know, Abed! I haven’t exactly had a chance to think about it, since this is the first time I’m hearing about your plan to move my life halfway across the country!”

“You’re angry,” Abed observes.

“Yeah, well spotted,” Troy mutters, wiping his eyes furiously. “Abed, you can’t just make decisions like that without asking me what I want.”

“I’m asking you now.”

“Are you?” Troy’s eyes meet his, and there’s so much hurt in them it makes Abed’s heart stop. “Are you really, or are you just telling me what’s gonna happen and expecting me to go along with it like your obedient little lapdog?”

“Troy…” Abed breathes, unable to come up with a reaction to something so unexpected.

“I need to be alone,” Troy mutters, and closes himself inside their bedroom before Abed can say anything. Abed sits at the dining table, stunned, and tries to figure out what to do. It’s not their first disagreement, but it’s the first time Troy has chosen to cry alone rather than have Abed comfort him, and something about that seems terrifyingly wrong.

He doesn’t know how long it’s been before Troy shuffles out of the bedroom, his eyes red and puffy.

“I’m sorry, Troy,” Abed says immediately. “You’re right, I should have talked to you first.”

“Yeah,” Troy sniffles. “But… it’s not just about that, Abed. The problem is that it’s _always_ like this. You call all the shots, you do whatever you want and just assume that I’ll follow wherever you go, and I’m tired of being your sidekick.”

“You’re not my sidekick, you never have been.” How could he have let Troy feel like this?

“But I am! I’m always the Reggie to your Inspector, you never let me do the zinger, you make all the decisions in every aspect of our lives. And when it comes to planning our future, you don’t even care about my opinion.”

“Of course I care about your opinion! If you really don’t want to go, then we won’t. I just didn’t think you’d mind. You know I want to make movies, and there’s nothing holding you here.”

“What if there was? What if I wanted to… teach at the AC school?”

“You want to teach at the AC school?”

“I could! They’d let me be vice-dean if I asked. So what then? Would you even _consider_ giving up what _you_ want so I can have what _I_ want?”

“So it’s okay for you to ask me to give up my dream for you, but I can’t ask you to give up something stupid that you don’t even want for me?”

“But you don’t ask, Abed, you just assume I will! And maybe I don’t want to be with someone who does that. Maybe I don’t want to be with someone who thinks that the things _I’m_ good at are stupid.”

His words ring in the air between them, and Abed feels something inside him shatter.

Three days later, Troy moves out of the apartment.

Pierce lives to be 102.

[ **_Timeline 5 (Abed)_ ** ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjLRe0AQCUw&ab_channel=Community)

After everyone has gone home, Troy tells Abed about the Norwegian troll that Pierce gave him as an alleged housewarming present but really as a form of revenge for moving out. It’s obvious during their next study group session that the relationship between Pierce and Troy has soured, and it never really recovers in the following months and years.

When Pierce dies, he leaves his fortune to Annie, his favorite, without conditions. Annie divides it into seven portions, one for Greendale, one for each member of the study group, and uses hers to open a private investigation business. 

Britta enrolls in a psychology program at an actual university. Jeff makes another attempt at opening his own law office. Shirley expands Shirley’s Sandwiches outside Greendale.

Troy and Abed decide to use part of their combined portions to fund the production of Abed’s first feature-length movie, _Police Justice._ Abed knows that this movie could make or break his chances of success in the industry, so he works hard on the script, and especially on the part of Detective Carlton, the main character’s younger colleague. It’s a small role but an essential one, and Abed writes it with Troy in mind.

“Yeah, about that,” Troy says sheepishly when Abed talks to him about it. “I think you should find someone else.”

“You don’t like it?” Abed asks, frowning. He’s even included a cavity search in the scrip for Troy’s benefit.

“I love it,” Troy says earnestly. “The movie’s awesome, and the part’s awesome, but I’m not sure I want to be an actor. And… everyone’s doing their own thing now, except me. I’m just helping you with yours. And I love doing that! I love _you._ But... I think it’s time for me to figure out what _I_ want to do.”

“Okay…” Abed says hesitantly. Troy not wanting to be in his movie is a blow, yes, but it’s not too bad, and of course Abed will always support Troy, whatever he wants to do. But Troy looks upset in a way that makes Abed worry that something worse is coming.

“I found this program, look.” Troy opens his laptop and finds a website he has bookmarked. “ _Teach English Abroad_. You just have to take a four-week course and then you can travel the world and get paid for speaking English!”

“You want to be a teacher?” Abed asks dully, while the words _travel the world_ echo in his mind with the intensity of a fire alarm.

“I don’t know,” Troy shrugs. “But it’s something to do while I figure out what I _really_ want. And I can’t do that here. If I stay, I’ll always just want to be with you and do whatever you’re doing, and I’ll never learn to be my own person.”

Abed can’t speak, or move, or react in any way. He stares mutely at Troy’s shoulder while inside his head, someone screams.

“Do you understand that, buddy?” Troy asks softly, placing a careful hand on Abed’s upper arm. “It’s just something that I have to do.”

When the soles of Abed’s feet start burning, he notices the floor has turned into lava.

[ **_Timeline 6 (Britta)_ ** ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyi_OFGdWRM&ab_channel=Community)

Britta’s engagement to the pizza guy is unsurprisingly short-lived, though it’s still more of a success than Jeff and Annie’s on again, off again relationship that they try to keep secret but which still threatens the fabric of the group at several junctions. Troy’s infatuation with Britta eventually peters out, and Abed pretends he isn’t privately happy about that. No one gets in the way of their nightly bunk bed conversations and Dreamatorium adventures. They’re as close as can be, and Abed almost forgets part of him longs for something more. He’s happy with the way things are.

Then Pierce dies, and leaves his shares in the Hawthorne Wipes company to Troy, on the condition that he sail his boat, the Childish Tycoon, around the entire world.

“Okay, I'm a lawyer, Troy,” Jeff says. “It should be possible to contest these conditions as unreasonable. And Pierce can take his mind games and his sperm and he can put--”

“When do I have to decide?” Troy interrupts him, and Abed realizes with a jolt that he’s _considering it._

“You have twenty-four hours,” says Mr. Stone, gathering his papers and getting up. “I’ll be in touch.”

As soon as he and his assistant leave, everyone starts talking over each other, determined to let Troy know what they think. Abed sits motionless, frozen in terror.

“Guys. _Guys!”_ Troy shouts over them. “I know y’all have things to say, but this is something that I need to decide on my own, okay?”

Abed doesn’t speak for the rest of the day. As soon as they get home, he climbs into bed without even changing out of his day clothes, curling into the tightest ball possible. Troy’s going to leave. Abed can tell he wants to. And who would Abed be to tell him to give up 14.3 million? Troy will leave, and Abed will go crazy, or maybe just die.

“Abed?” Troy’s voice asks, ever so gentle, and the mattress dips under his weight as he sits on the edge of the bed next to Abed. “Can I touch you?”

Abed can’t speak. It’s taking all of his strength to keep his whimpers inside, and if he opens his mouth, they’ll definitely get out. He nods minutely, and then he feels Troy’s warm hand on his back, running up and down his spine.

“It wouldn’t be forever, you know,” Troy says softly. “I’d come back as soon as possible, and send you postcards from every port, and call you as often as I can. You’d still be my best friend, always. But I won’t go if you need me to stay.”

It’s a pointless question, of course Abed needs him to stay. He goes crazy without Troy, that’s the established canon. Although there’s nothing to say he isn’t crazy already. And he probably won’t actually die without Troy, even though he may want to. It won’t kill him. How unfair would it be if Troy had to give up his chance to become his own man and a millionaire just because his friend has mental issues? Abed can’t ask that of him, he can’t be that kind of burden. He has to tell Troy that it’s okay, that he can go.

“Don’t go,” he says instead, voice breaking. “Please. Don’t go.”

The hand on his back stills and then resumes moving with firmer pressure.

“I won’t,” Troy promises. “It’s okay, buddy. I won’t.” He shifts until he’s lying on his side behind Abed, curling up around him protectively. His arm wraps around Abed’s waist, holding him close, and Abed can feel him press a kiss to the back of his head. “I won’t.”

When Mr. Stone calls the next day, Troy lets him know he’s decided not to accept Pierce’s offer, and life goes on as before. The only difference is that there’s now a weight in the pit of Abed’s stomach that he can never get rid of and that he knows is guilt. Troy never says or does anything to make him feel guilty, but Abed still does. He remembers the day when they repiloted and Troy said he needed to figure out who he is, and Abed promised to help him. He’s failed to keep that promise. Instead, he prevented Troy from going on what was clearly meant to be a journey of self-discovery.

He knows Troy knows this, knows that he’s missed an opportunity. He takes classes, goes on dates, tries learning to cook, finds a part-time job, and he isn’t happy. Abed can see he isn’t happy.

“I’m sorry for making you stay,” Abed tells him two months after Pierce’s funeral. “I know you regret it.”

“What? Abed, that’s not true!”

“Friends don’t lie, Troy.”

“I could _never_ regret choosing you, that’s not a lie! You’re more important to me than any amount of money,” Troy says fiercely, and Abed loves him so, so much.

“It’s not just about the money, though.” Abed’s tongue feels like it’s made of lead, making it difficult to speak. “That trip was meant to be your character development arc. You deserve to have that.”

“Abed--”

“I called Mr. Stone. Apparently, Pierce anticipated this and gave you a year to change your mind. You can still go.”

Troy stares at him. “I -- what?”

“You can still go,” Abed repeats, pretending that his heart isn’t breaking. “I want you to.”

This time, Troy goes.

*

Troy leaves in every timeline.

Abed should have known. Of course there’s no timeline where someone like him gets to keep someone like Troy. He doesn’t know why it hurts the way it does, when his Troy in his timeline was already gone anyway, but it’s like the pain has multiplied six times instead of easing. He grabs a pillow and buries his face in it to muffle the scream he can’t keep in.

He’s not sure how much time has passed, but his vocal cords have given up by the time he becomes aware of another sound in the room. A comforting, familiar melody hummed by a comforting, familiar voice. And then a hand, carding slowly through his hair. He tries to focus on the sensation instead of the weight crushing his body to dust. Troy used to do this for him. But this isn’t Troy, because Troy isn’t here anymore. Troy is gone in every timeline. This is Annie.

He opens his eyes to find her kneeling on the floor next to where he’s curled up on his bed (Troy’s bed). She smiles when he manages to focus on her, but it’s a strained smile and her eyes are wide with fear. He understands, somewhere in the back of his mind, that she’s scared for him (or perhaps _of_ him), but he can’t make himself feel anything about it. Then he understands that she shouldn’t be in his room because he locked the door.

“How did you get in here?” he asks. His voice is rough and croaky.

Annie stops humming but doesn’t stop stroking his hair. “Jeff broke down the door,” she says quietly. “You were screaming, Abed. You scared us.”

Abed wonders vaguely if Jeff is in the room too, if he’s making a spectacle of himself in front of more than one person, but he doesn’t care enough to move his head to check.

“Why is Jeff here? Are you two back together?”

Annie’s hand in his hair stills for a second. “What are you talking about? Jeff and I were never together.”

Now she’s even more worried. That’s bad. Abed knows it’s bad, so he should do something.

“Sorry, wrong timeline,” he says. “You’re a lesbian.”

“Wha--? Abed. This is the prime timeline, remember? The one where you caught the die?”

The prime timeline. Funny that he called it that, like it was somehow better or more important than the other ones, when in fact they’re all equally bad. Even the darkest timeline isn’t really the darkest. They’re all dark timelines.

“Troy leaves in every timeline,” Abed tells her, just so she knows there’s no hope of a better world.

“Oh,” Annie exhales, her face crumpling. “Oh, Abed.”

She pities him, because she knows he can’t function without Troy. Abed should probably be upset or angry about that, but he just doesn’t care.

Maybe it’s better this way. If there was a timeline where Troy stayed, Abed would probably try to live in it. At least now he knows that this is the way it’s supposed to be, that he couldn’t have done anything to achieve a different outcome. This is what’s best for Troy.

“How do you know what happens in the other timelines?” Annie asks softly.

“I saw it.”

“Where did you see it?”

The answer to that is _in his head,_ because he’s insane. That’s what Annie’s getting at, that it’s not real. But it doesn’t actually matter that the timelines aren’t real alternate timelines, that they’re just simulations his sick brain has made up. They are confirmation enough that Troy doesn’t belong with him anymore, and Abed will just have to learn to live with that.

“I know you miss him so much,” Annie says when he doesn’t reply. “I miss him too. But you can’t go on like this forever. Will you at least eat something, please? There’s buttered noodles, and Shirley made brownies. She’s in the living room, with Jeff and Britta,” she answers Abed’s unspoken question, “but you don’t have to see them if you don’t want to.”

He doesn’t have Troy anymore, but he still has his other friends, and they’re all worried about him. The least he can do is try to make them a little less worried. Maybe he can do that, now that he knows that Troy’s leaving was inevitable.

“I don’t want to talk,” he murmurs.

“We don’t have to talk,” Annie promises immediately, and this time her smile is a little more real, even though it’s still sad. She hands him a bottle of water, and he realizes his throat is parched. He drinks, and gets out of bed, and sits on the sofa between Jeff and Britta and nibbles on Shirley’s brownie while they watch a movie he can’t be bothered to identify. He doesn’t look anyone in the face, and no one asks him any questions or tries to get him involved in a conversation. By the time the movie ends, he realizes he’s grateful for his friends’ company, and it’s the first positive feeling he’s had since the day of Pierce’s funeral.

Slowly, he manages to put himself back together, piece by piece, learning to exist without Troy. Sometimes he wonders how the other Abeds have adjusted, but he never tries to check. It’s probably better not to know, since there’s a good chance some of them simply haven’t.

Life goes on, and at some point he discovers he’s able to enjoy things again, even to be happy. He finds a job, and moves to LA.

Two years later, Troy comes back. He steps back on American soil in Santa Monica, and the first thing he does is throw himself into Abed’s arms. The first thing he says is that he’s never leaving again unless Abed asks him to.

Abed doesn’t ask him to.

Later, after the dust has settled, after they have re-learned old ways of being together and learned new ones, when they are comfortable and secure in sharing a home and a bed and a life and no longer have to tread carefully around old wounds, Abed tells him about the timelines, about finding out that Troy left in all of them.

“I came back in all of them, too,” Troy says, a quiet certainty in his voice. He nuzzles Abed’s jaw, runs his fingers along his hip.

“How do you know?”

Troy leans in and kisses him, soft and sweet. “That’s just how it is,” he whispers. “A Troy always comes back to his Abed. It’s where he belongs.”

Abed thinks he may be able to believe him.


End file.
